• UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres announced the appointment of Catherine Russell as the next executive director of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

• Russell is currently director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office and assistant to US President Joe Biden.

• Russell, a lawyer, has worked in Democratic politics since the mid-1980s. She worked on Capitol Hill and at the White House and State Department during the eight years that Barack Obama was president and Biden was Vice President. 

• She will succeed Henrietta Fore, who resigned in July.

United Nations Children’s Fund

• The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), originally known as the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund, was created by the United Nations General Assembly on December 11, 1946, to provide emergency food and health care to children and mothers in countries that had been devastated by World War II.

• In 1950, UNICEF’s mandate was extended to address the long-term needs of children and women in developing countries everywhere. 

• In 1953, it became a permanent part of the United Nations System, and the words ‘international’ and ‘emergency’ were dropped from the organisation’s name, though it retained the original acronym, ‘UNICEF’.

• UNICEF works in over 190 countries and territories with the goal of saving children’s lives, defending their rights and helping them fulfil their potential, from early childhood through adolescence.

• One of the world’s largest providers of vaccines, UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, safe water and sanitation, quality education and skill building, HIV prevention and treatment for mothers and babies, and the protection of children and adolescents from violence and exploitation. 

• Its headquarters is situated in New York.

• It operates through country offices around the world, as well as 34 National Committees, seven regional offices, a research centre in Florence, a supply operation in Copenhagen, a shared services centre in Budapest, as well as other offices in Brussels, Geneva, Seoul, and Tokyo.

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